Breakin' In Slow Motion
by dragonmactir
Summary: Angsty, perhaps, but comes from real life. Lassiter has a medical condition he doesn't understand. Juliet tries to help him cope with it. Probably no pairing: consider it strong friendship for now.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

 **A/N:** Yeah, I know I didn't need to start _another_ story, but this is what I'm dealing with myself, and I thought it might help me understand it a little better perhaps if I put it in writing. I gave it to Lassy because he, I think, is the most likely to come down with it, seeing as it is apparently caused by anxiety, tension, and just possibly depression (the docs have been a little vague toward me on this point, and it makes no sense because, bipolar or not, I'm never seriously depressed). Give him a bad enough case and he could come down with it, and being sidelined from his job would only increase his stresses. This condition is also, according to the docs, fairly common, though I would have told you I was the _last_ damn person on earth this would have ever happened to, short of Lassy himself. Le sigh. In any event, I've made this pretty much exactly what happened to me, only in a police setting. I don't know how quickly I can finish this one, which I hope will be _fairly_ short, because I don't fully know what I'm dealing with yet and my next neurologist's appointment is late October. So bear with me if you get involved in this. I'm going to try and make it accurate. Probably no pairing.

* * *

 **Prologue: Java**

The case had gone on for far, far too long, but at least it was over now. The killer finally brought to justice, or at least to his day in court, and hopefully their ducks were all in a row evidence-wise and the prosecutor would be able to bring it all together with whatever else he could scare up about him and put him away forever. Juliet O'Hara was grateful it was over and done, very grateful. It gave _her_ a chance to relax, but more importantly, her partner.

Head Detective Carlton Lassiter had dived into the case headfirst from the highest board and hadn't come up for air until the last damn second. He spent damned near every night in the station, pouring over evidence, slept as little as he could get away with before Juliet or Chief Karen Vick or pretty much everyone around him sent him packing off home to rest, where there was certainly no guarantee he actually _did_ , ate almost nothing, and lost a great deal of weight he couldn't afford to lose. It wasn't unheard of for him to take a case so intensely seriously, and this one was… _that_ kind of case. A serial killer, targeting children and teens. It took _months_ to track him down, but now they had him. They had him, and they could breathe again.

Chief Vick tried to get Lassiter to take time off. A vacation. "You need it, Carlton. Go fishing. Hunting. Whatever. Just…go out and breathe some fresh air." But he refused. He _would_ come back to work as usual after all was said and done, as though nothing had changed, and he _did_ , and it seemed very much as though nothing _had._ For weeks, nothing seemed different at all.

And then one afternoon, Juliet was plugging in some data at her computer and Lassiter was behind her at the coffee bar. She tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear as he turned around and held out a cup of steaming black joe toward her. She reached up for it. He didn't hand it to her.

"Carlton?" she said. She looked up. He was leaning on one hand against her desk, looking, apparently, at her computer, and the expression on his face was…utterly blank. And he held that coffee out, quite steadily. "Carlton? What's wrong, Carlton?"

He didn't answer. He didn't move. He held that cup of coffee out.

"Carlton, partner, you're…you're starting to _worry_ me," Juliet said, laughing to lighten what she was saying. "What's wrong, Carlton?"

No answer. No movement. Nothing.

Juliet stood up. She waved a hand in front of his eyes. No response, not even a blink. Scared to death now, she pushed down on the coffee mug so he had to set it down on her desk. She tried to turn him and push him into her chair, but he was too big. All that messing with him, however, seemed to spark something, and he blinked uncertainly at her.

"Carlton? Carlton, are you okay?" she asked, worried beyond comprehension.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he said, not sounding at all sure of that.

"I think you should sit down, don't you?" she said, trying to keep her voice light and unconcerned.

"Yeah. Okay," he said, and lowered himself into her desk chair. Now she _knew_ he was sick. If he really _was_ fine, he would have pitched a royal fit about being told to sit and take a load off.

"I think we should check your blood pressure, okay?" she said, and he nodded. Moving swiftly, she went to go get the medical kit and the electronic blood pressure cuff contained therein. She rolled up his sleeve and put the cuff on him, but when the machine beeped and gave back its information, there was nothing wrong with his blood pressure at all.

At all.

She took the cuff off him, stood up and looked at him for a long moment. The fog seemed slowly to be lifting, his eyes clearing, but _something_ was definitely wrong with him. She put the cuff away and went into Chief Vick's office.

"Chief, something's wrong with Carlton. I need to take him to the hospital," she said without preamble.

The Chief looked up from her paperwork, eyebrows raised. "What happened?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. He was just getting coffee, when all of a sudden he just…froze up. He came out of it, but…he's still kind of…groggy."

"Froze up? You mean…like a _seizure?_ All right, go, take him," Vick said, with an urgent wave of the hand.

Juliet trotted back to the Bullpen quite quickly in her heels, but found Lassiter _not_ where she left him. Confused, she stood looking at her empty chair for a moment before turning around and coming face to face with him, a few steps from his desk, files in his hand that he appeared to be perusing intently.

"O'Hara, I've got the toxicology report on that Fieldman case," he said, as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened.

"Carlton! We…we've got to go to the hospital," she said, stunned.

He looked at her as though she had squirrels swan-diving out of her ears.

"What the hell? _Why?"_ he asked.

She waved her hands helplessly at him. "Because you…you're _sick."_

Now he looked outraged. "I am _not._ What's _wrong_ with you, O'Hara?"

"Carlton, you…you had some sort of seizure or something like that. Don't you…don't you _remember?"_

"You're being ridiculous, O'Hara; _I_ don't have seizures. Now come on, we've got a murder to solve."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

 **A/N:** I know it makes no sense at all that the two firecrackers in Lassiter's life - O'Hara and Chief Vick - wouldn't FORCE him to go to the hospital, but _I_ managed to stubborn-ass my way out of going to the hospital the first time I zoned out, so I had Lassy do the same. He still goes WAY quicker than I did. _I_ put it off until I could no longer convince myself that it wasn't happening. No one around me was strong enough to force me to do anything I wasn't going to do for myself. Lassy definitely doesn't have that.

* * *

 **Chapter One: Dead-Ringer**

Juliet tried her damnedest to talk Lassiter into going to the hospital with her. He refused to believe anything had happened, said she was wasting valuable time, and since no one else in the station had witnessed the occurrence, there was no one to add their voice to hers in arguing with him. Chief Vick came out of her office and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at him with her eyebrows raised, and said to Juliet, "Keep at him. If something's wrong then something's wrong."

"Come on, O'Hara; we have a witness to talk to," he said, jingling the keys to the Crown Vic. "Stop wasting my time with nonsense and get back to work."

She reached out and grabbed the keys from his hand. "I'll go with you, if you really insist on this, but you are _not_ driving, mister," she said. "You are relegated to the passenger seat today, Detective."

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but amazingly, did not argue. A good sign that he _still_ didn't feel quite right, no matter what he thought.

"All right, let's roll," he said, and headed for the door.

He loaded himself into the passenger side of the vehicle with only a bit of grumping, and sat with his elbow up on the window ledge of the door and his head leaning on his hand. Though it definitely occurred to her to drive him straight to the ER, that lack of anything wrong with his blood pressure and the almost-nothing wrong with him now combined to make Juliet frustratingly certain that she should just go to the damn witness's location, lest she have an angry and intractable Head Detective on her hands. She should have at least had _Woody_ take a look at him before they left, maybe. Why hadn't she thought of that?

Well, maybe because Woody was crazier than a shithouse rat, and nobody's first thought when it came to sudden unexpected illness.

She'd take him down to Woody's lair when they got back. That's what she'd do. And if he had another… "episode" like that one at the coffee bar, she'd take him straight to the Emergency Room, no matter how damned angry he'd get.

She pulled into a parking space in front of the witness's place of employment and looked at her partner, who didn't move at all. Was he in that strange blank state again?

"Carlton?" she ventured, nervously.

"Yeah?" he said, and she let out a breath of pure relief.

"I…I'm thinking maybe…you should stay here," she said, not entirely sure what she was going to say until it was out of her mouth. "I'll go in and talk to Hagstrom. It should only take a minute."

"Yeah. Okay," he said, and any and _all_ doubt that he was sick was gone. Even if he weren't taking the lead in an investigation he would always but _always_ be there, right at her shoulder, typically glowering at the witness or suspect or whoever they were talking to. Sitting in the car and waiting? Carlton Jebediah Lassiter…did not…do that. He was sick, indubitably, and in some little corner of his mind, he knew it.

Now. How to make him admit it?

She was rather short with her witness, all so very unintentionally, but she had little attention to spare Mr. Alexander Hagstrom and what he might or might not have seen from his real estate agency's window on the afternoon in question. She had to get back to the cruiser, to her partner, to make sure he was okay. The memory of his blankness, of that lock-up, had her freaked.

She scribbled down the last of the necessary information, thanked the witness, and scrambled back out to the car, where she found Lassiter looking…rather more alert, actually. She climbed into the driver's seat and looked at him for a long moment, with her hand on the key in the ignition.

"What?" he said, eyebrows high.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine. God, you're acting weird today."

"Carlton, don't you remember _anything?_ Sitting in my chair? Not like you at all?"

His expression changed, growing rather tense. "Ahh…maybe. Sort of. Kinda. Not…really."

"And that doesn't _alarm_ you?" she demanded. "What about your blood pressure? Do you remember me taking your blood pressure?"

His face blanched. "I…sort of. I...thought I'd…I thought I dreamed that."

She turned on the ignition and put the car in gear. "I'm taking you to the hospital," she said, relieved that he seemed at last to be admitting something was wrong.

He grabbed the gear shift. "The hell you are, O'Hara," he said.

"Carlton, you _know_ you're sick."

"I am not! Okay, something weird happened, but it was just a fluke. I'm fine now. There's no need to get all upset."

"Carlton, you don't know what it was! For all we know, it could've been a _stroke!"_

He let out an exasperated breath. "I _didn't_ have a _stroke,_ O'Hara," he said, as if the very idea were ludicrous. "Let's just go back to the station and get to work, okay? We've got a lot to do."

He let go of the gear shift and her hand. She let out her own exasperated breath and pulled out of the parking space.

"Where are you headed?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Where else? The _station,"_ she said, biting her words off aggressively.

She pulled up outside the building and parked in the spot reserved for Lassiter, and when they entered the building she grabbed him by the arm and fairly dragged him downstairs.

"Where are we going?"

"The morgue," she said, as calmly as possible.

" _Why_ are we going to the morgue?" he said. "I haven't really looked at that tox report yet, so I have nothing to talk to Woody about."

" _I_ do, and it hinges upon you," she said, and pushed through the swinging door into the coroner's office. Woody looked up from his instrument cart as they entered. "Woody, I need you to examine Detective Lassiter. He had some sort of seizure and refuses to go to the hospital for it."

Carlton shook her off. "I'm not letting the goddamned coroner examine me," he said.

"You'd rather wait until you're here on my table?" Woody said, smiling. "Seizures can be serious, Detective. Come on, just a quick look."

"Carlton. Just let him look at you," Juliet said, implacable, and positioned herself in front of the door so he could not escape. Lassiter sighed and turned around to face the medical examiner, who got out a penlight and started shining it in his eyes.

"Have you experienced any head trauma recently?" Woody asked.

"No," Lassiter said.

"Tell me exactly what happened."

Lassiter was silent, and Juliet realized he didn't really _know_ what happened, so she spoke up. "He was at the coffee bar behind my desk, about forty-five minutes to an hour ago. He turned around and made as if to hand me a cup of coffee but he just…froze. He wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't move, wouldn't respond in any way. I got up and tried to get him to move but he wouldn't, and then he blinked and kind of came out of it, but he was still kind of…groggy, like he'd just woken up. He sat down in my chair and let me take his blood pressure. But when I got back from the Chief's office, from telling her I needed to take him to the hospital, he was up and about and had no apparent memory whatsoever that anything had happened! Now he remembers a _little_ about sitting down and me taking his blood pressure, but he still won't do anything about it."

"What was his blood pressure reading?" Woody asked. Juliet told him. "Well, that's a good reading. Which is good, but doesn't _entirely_ rule out the possibility of a mini-stroke - not that I would call that the _most_ -likely scenario. But we do have to consider it."

Juliet's heart plummeted into her shoes. She'd been so afraid of that.

"What else could it be?" she asked, in a tiny, tiny voice.

"Well…it could be epilepsy. He might've had it all his life and it's only now becoming a problem for him. It could also be…well…something wrong upstairs," Woody said, looking uncomfortable.

"Something…wrong…upstairs? What do you mean?" Juliet said, alarmed.

"There are a lot of brain problems that can cause seizures," Woody said, grimacing. "Not just epilepsy. But I'm no neurologist. If it's not head trauma and it's not a stroke and it's not epilepsy, then you really need a neurologist to figure out what the hell it _is_. Because a _coroner_ isn't going to be able to tell you."

"Should I take him to the ER?" Juliet asked.

Woody finished his examination. "I don't _think_ that's necessary, but _do_ get him to a neurologist as soon as possible," he said. "I know I don't know Detective Lassiter as well as you do, Detective O'Hara, but I know him well enough to say this with some surety: _You_ make the appointment, my dear, because _he_ never will. And you make him go if you have to hold a gun to his head and stuff him in the trunk of your car."

She grinned at him. "All right, Woody. Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

 **A/N:** I can't be specific about what they eat at their Thai restaurant because there are no Thai restaurants in Fort Dodge, Iowa. I'm ignorant of most international cuisine. Best we've got is a _very_ little bit of probably inauthentic Chinese and some extremely Americanized Mexican. And I've never eaten at the Chinese restaurant, because I don't know where it is. It's kind of hidden on a back street somewhere and I only know where it is in a general sense. It might not even be in business anymore, for all I know, because the streets that it is on have been under construction for the last couple of years.

 **Chapter Two: Catatonic**

"All right. We have an opening _tomorrow_ at 1:30."

"Oh, wonderful, thank you. I'll get him there." Juliet hung up the phone and held it against her shoulder for a moment Tomorrow. Better than she was expecting, actually, but…still so damn far away. And more than likely, no way to get Carlton to take it easy 'til then.

Oh well, she'd just keep an extra-close eye on him, and if _anything_ at all happened, she'd get him to the ER. Just in case.

And she was keeping hold of the keys to the car.

There were no further episodes that day, thank goodness. At quitting time he, of course, tried to get the keys to the Crown Vic back but Juliet held firm.

"No no, Carlton. Until we know what happened and we know that it is _not_ going to happen again, you are riding with me. I'll take you home in my car, and I'll pick you up in the morning. Actually, maybe I'd better stay with you tonight. Just to make sure you're okay."

He sighed and rolled his eyes. _"O'Hara…"_

" _Carlton…"_ she said, matching his tone with an additional eye roll. "If you pass out while driving you'll get in a wreck and maybe kill yourself or somebody else. And if you pass out at home you could slam your head into something. I'm _driving_ you home, and I'm _staying_ over."

He sighed in clear frustration, rolled his eyes, but followed her out to her Bug. He loaded himself into the passenger seat, swearing under his breath, and sat with his knees practically hitting him in the chin and a most ferocious scowl on his face - even for him. She climbed into the driver's seat and reached over to pat him on the cheek gently.

"Carlton. Calm down. It's one night. Tomorrow, I'll take you to the doctor, and if luck is with us we'll find out then that everything is okay and there's nothing more to worry about."

"Yeah yeah. _I'm_ not worried about it _now,_ O'Hara."

"You should be, at least a little. Carlton, you… _froze solid._ You looked like a mannequin. Holding a hot cup of coffee."

"I think you're exaggerating the seriousness of this little…incident, O'Hara."

"Woody said you could've had a _stroke,_ Carlton. I'm taking you to a _neurologist_ tomorrow. Going to a neurologist is a _big deal_. What if you have a _tumor?"_

" _It's not a tumor,"_ he said, and then looked rather sheepish.

"You don't know _what_ it could be, Carlton, and that's the truth, plain and simple. And I'm not letting you face this alone. I'm gonna be with you every step of the way, no matter where this goes."

He shifted uncomfortably in the tiny passenger seat. "Yeah, well…thanks."

"You want to stop somewhere for dinner? If you're too tired we could maybe hit a drive-thru," Juliet said.

"I'm not too tired. Where do you wanna go?" he said.

"Thai?" she said. "I know this neat little place down near Stearns Wharf I've been wanting to try."

"Sounds good to me."

"Awesome."

The dinner was nice. Juliet carefully avoided any discussion of the day's events, and Lassiter _certainly_ wasn't going to bring it up, so conversation was relatively light - relatively, because conversation with Lassiter was never truly "light" - and the food was good. When the waiter came by with the check Lassiter paid, against Juliet's objections.

"You're…going out of your way for me, not that I think I really need it," he said, rolling his eyes and looking away from her in clear embarrassment. "The least I can do is buy you supper."

"Well, thank you, Carlton, that's…very nice of you."

"Yeah yeah. Let's get out of here."

Back at Lassiter's condo, Juliet looked around at the pictures of uzis with sprays of flowers coming out of the barrels and hand grenade-shaped candles and, despite this, thought the place was actually rather…

pleasant. He had apparently gotten rid of the Claridge boards on which he used to diagram suspects and evidence at home, or at least they were not out in the living room like they used to be. He didn't have a couch, which was kind of weird, she thought, for a lanky guy like him - where did he take naps? - but his loveseat was comfortable. The color scheme of the place was…kind of calming. A good thing. Lassiter… _needed_ calming.

She spent the evening watching cable. CNN, a little Fox News, despite how much she hated Fox News. She watched these things because she expected Lassiter to watch with her, but he put his laptop on his lap and paid no attention to the TV whatsoever. She tried not to pry but finally curiosity overcame her and she peered at his screen to see what he was working on. A case file. Shocker.

He seemed to be fine for the rest of the night, so she sent him to bed and in the morning she was only slightly worried about him as he showered and dressed. She stayed outside the bathroom door very close by so she could hear anything as loud as a collapse if it happened, and she told him to leave the door unlocked.

"You are _not_ coming in this bathroom with me, O'Hara," he said, quite fiercely, sticking his finger in her face.

"No, I'm not. But I need to be able to _get_ in, just in case."

He rolled eyes and went in, closing the door quite firmly in her face. But she _didn't_ hear the soft click of the door lock.

He was out shortly, with no apparent problems. She was relieved. She drove him to the station, knowing she couldn't keep him away from work until it was time to take him to the doctor.

As the day progressed she was increasingly relieved. Nothing _happened_. He was perfectly normal, all morning. She began to hope that what _had_ happened really was just a fluke.

And then…

"Detective? Detective? _Lassiter!"_

It was Sergeant Allen talking. Lassiter had gone over to her desk to check messages after lunch. He was still there, a good five minutes later, just standing there, sort of… _leaning_ against the desk, and Allen was staring at him in some alarm.

"Er…Detective O'Hara…could you come over here, please?" she called.

.Juliet hurried over. "Carlton? Carlton, talk to me," she said.

"What's wrong with him? He's just standing there, staring at nothing," Allen said, eyes popping. She fondled the power crystal hanging around her neck on a black cord. "He's not…having some kind of _spiritual episode,_ is he?"

Juliet's eyelids fluttered as she made every attempt not to roll her eyes at the Desk Sergeant. "No, Patricia, this is…a…medical…condition. He's okay. I'm taking him to the doctor soon. Carlton? Carlton, come with me. Come on."

He seemed to be coming out of it, enough at least to turn when she tugged on his arm and follow her over to the bench seat near the conference room wall. "Come on, big guy. Why don't you…lay down for a minute, hey? Just 'til you feel better?"

He nodded and mumbled something that sounded affirmative. She pushed down on his shoulders and he lay down on the bench without protest. Coworkers gathered around, watching, whispering to each other. She turned around, chagrined that she had put her partner in a position of weakness in front of them.

" _Get back to work,"_ she shouted in her best imitation of Lassiter, and everyone moved away abruptly.

Dobson came up to her. "Don't you think…maybe…we should call an ambulance? Or just…load him in a squad car and haul him to the hospital?"

"I would, Dobson, but I'm taking him to see a neurologist in about an hour and a half. He'll be okay, I…hope." She said this last in a very quiet voice. "This happened yesterday, too, and his blood pressure was fine, and Woody said it probably _wasn't_ a stroke."

"Well, that's good news. But _Woody_ …couldn't give him a CAT scan, right? Or whatever it is they do to prove strokes?"

"I know. And Woody _did_ say it was an outside possibility. But he also said there were…a lot of other things it was _way_ more likely to be, including epilepsy. That's why I got him an appointment with a neurologist today. Doctor Rezai will tell us what's up and what to do about it."

"What do _you_ think is wrong with him?" Dobson said, fidgeting. "'Cause if there's anyone I never thought I'd see acting all…out of it, and sick… I mean, he's _never_ sick. Ever."

"I don't know. Hopefully…nothing serious. But I don't know."

Dobson clapped her on the shoulder. "Take care of him, O'Hara," he said. "He's a hard-ass all right, but we _need_ him around here."

She patted his hand. "I will, Dobson. I will."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

 **Chapter Three: Doctor Rezai**

It was roughly twenty minutes before Lassiter got up off the bench. He pushed himself up onto his elbow, looked around himself, bewildered, and said, "What the hell, am I taking naps at _work_ now?"

Juliet hurried over to him. "Carlton. Do you remember what happened?"

"Err…no. Can't say that I do," he said, looking up at her with wide and rather worried eyes.

"You had another episode, Carlton. You froze up right at the Booking desk."

"Oh yeah? Imagine that."

"You're trying to play it off, aren't you? But you can't fool me, Carlton. You're as freaked out about this as I am."

"I am not freaked," he said, speaking quite boldly, but he couldn't hide the nervousness in his ever-expressive eyes.

Chief Vick came out of her office and came to stand nearby, looking down at him where he still sat on the bench. She tapped her foot on the tile floor.

"You're taking him to see a doctor soon?" she asked Juliet, without breaking the gaze she had locked on Lassiter.

"We'll be leaving for the appointment in just a little while, Chief," Juliet said. The Chief nodded.

"Get him there. And Carlton?"

"Yes, Chief?" he said, clearly not wanting to say anything.

" _Do_ what the doctor tells you to do. _Whatever_ he tells you to do. Understood?"

"…Understood, Chief."

Juliet reached down and tugged on his arm. "Come on, Carlton. We might as well get going. There'll be insurance forms to fill out, and things like that."

A little bit dazedly, he stood and allowed her to pull him out of the station to her car outside. She loaded him up and drove him to the hospital.

Inside, at the reception desk, the elderly receptionist smiled at them and asked them where they were bound for.

"We have an appointment with Dr. Rezai, in Neurology?" Juliet said. "I don't really know how to get there."

"I'll have one of our assistants show you the way," the receptionist said, cheerily. She pushed a button. "Michael?"

A young man in a red vest came out of a back room. "Yes?" he said.

"Could you please show these people to Neurology?" the receptionist said. "They have an appointment with Dr. Babbak."

"Er…Dr. Rezai," Juliet said, raising a finger.

"Yup. Right this way," Michael said, and led them onward. A right, a left, and a short walk down a long hall, and he left them off at another reception desk.

Juliet gently pushed Lassiter into a seat in the waiting area and waited in line for an open receptionist. When she got up to the desk the woman asked her who she was here to see and who her appointment was for.

"Um…we're here to see Dr. Rezai, and the appointment is for Carlton Lassiter," she said, enunciating carefully.

"Ah, you want Dr. Babbak," the receptionist said. Juliet looked at her in confusion. "It's his first name. We call him that. It's a little easier to pronounce. He's straight down one floor, right off the elevator. Now…has Mr. Lassiter been outside the country in the last thirty days or been near anyone showing any symptoms of diseases such as Ebola?"

Juliet took Lassiter downstairs. She didn't like how out of it he was still acting, not at all. Well, hopefully this "Dr. Babbak" would have answers. And cures.

She gave this receptionist Lassiter's information and they sat down in the tiny waiting room. The lobby area was apparently under a degree of construction: the drop ceiling was out, exposing the pipes and electrical wiring above. Juliet thought it made the place seem a little imposing.

They weren't that early for the appointment, but they had to wait a good solid forty-five minutes anyway. Long enough for Lassiter to come fully out of his daze. She was glad to see it but it might have been good for the doctor to see his condition after the spell. Oh well. She would describe it.

A nurse came to the doorway. "Carlton?"

Juliet stood up, pulling on Lassiter's arm. "Come on, Carlton, you know you need this."

"Yeah yeah," he said. "Let's get it over with."

In the office, the nurse had him slip out of his jacket and roll up his sleeve as he sat on the end of the examining table. She took his blood pressure. "Good numbers. Good to see," she said. "The doctor will be with you in just a minute."

She left them then, and they waited. In about ten minutes, the doctor came in. "All right, Mr. Lassiter," he said.

"Detective," Lassiter said.

"Pardon?"

"Detective Lassiter. Much like you went to medical school to be called 'doctor,' I studied my ass off to be called 'detective.' Get it right."

"Ah…very well, then, Detective. What seems to be the problem, eh?"

"My partner here says I've been…blacking out," Lassiter grumbled.

"Freezing up, more like," Juliet said. "Twice now, the last time just before we came here today. He just…stopped, dead still. The first time he was even holding out a cup of coffee. He didn't drop it or anything. He just stood there and stared at nothing and didn't respond. He did the same thing this second time. Just stood there and stared. I got him to lay down once he…kinda…came to, but when he got up about twenty minutes later, he had no idea why he was laying down. He didn't remember anything. The first time, either. He didn't remember me sitting him down in my chair or taking his blood pressure. He came out of it so slowly - it was like he was drugged or drowsy."

"So it was like catatonia?" the doctor said.

Juliet nodded. "Exactly."

"Was there any aphasia?"

"Um…no, not that I've noticed," she said.

"Have you had any head trauma recently?"

"No," Lassiter said. The doctor turned back to Juliet.

"Can I ask why you didn't immediately take him to the ER?" he asked.

"He wouldn't let me," she said. "He came to before I could load him in my car. I would've taken him anyway, despite how angry and downright intractable he would've been, but his blood pressure was just fine when I checked it so I thought…it probably wasn't anything potentially deadly like a stroke. I did make him go downstairs at the station to the county medical examiner's office and had the coroner, Dr. Strode, check him out. Woody said it _could've_ been a stroke, but that there were a lot of other things it was more likely to be. He's the one who told me to get him in to see you as soon as possible. I made the appointment right away. The first episode was just yesterday, so we got in pretty quick."

"Detective Lassiter…are you seeing a psychiatrist?" the doctor asked.

"Uh…no," he said, uncertainly.

"How about a therapist?"

"No. I have in the past, but no, not currently."

"All right. I'm going to set you up with an appointment to have an EEG - you know what that is, right?"

"An electroencephalogram," Lassiter said.

"Precisely. That will help us determine whether this might not be epilepsy, as well as a number of other disorders. I'm also going to set you up with an appointment for an MRI, which will rule out other potential causes. It might take a little while for that appointment to come through - we have to set it up with your insurance company, and they can take awhile to approve it. I _also_ want you to give serious consideration to making an appointment with a doctor I do some work with. Dr. Segreto. I will give you her card. I will also give you something to give to her, a recommendation that she _consider_ putting you on a medication called Lamictil. It is an anti-seizure medication I often prescribe that she _also_ often prescribes, for a different reason."

"You want me to go to a different doctor to get this medication? Why can't you prescribe it for me if you think I need it?" Lassiter said.

"Because I want to see if she agrees with me," the doctor said. "Cases like yours are rather complicated. A second opinion from a different discipline is an excellent idea. And if you talk to her, which let me restate I _highly_ recommend, have her set you up with a therapist as well."

Lassiter closed his eyes. "She's a psychiatrist, isn't she?" he asked. "You think I'm nuts."

" _No,_ I think you may have a stress disorder. You work in a high stress occupation. I probably should ask; I was taking it for granted: have you _been_ under any excessive stress lately, perhaps a case that was especially draining?"

"No," Lassiter said.

"There was the Jacobson case," Juliet said. "If _that_ wasn't high-stress, nothing is."

"That was weeks ago," Lassiter said.

"It can _take_ weeks for symptoms to appear," the doctor said. "They can come from the _relief_ of stress as easily as from the stress itself.

"I'm going to let you out of here now. Remember to make the appointment for your EEG at the reception desk and get them to look into setting you up for your MRI, as well as get you a follow-up appointment down the line. And Detective? No driving, for the foreseeable future. We'll reexamine that possibility at the follow-up appointment."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

 **A/N:** Sorry for the delay on this stuff, but this chapter was hard to write, probably because my first talk with my doc about the seizures was not my first talk with my doc, so I didn't know how to go back in time and make it a first talk. I don't remember now what my first talk with a psychiatrist was like. Next chapter's probably going to be tough because the EEG showed that there might be something nasty wrong with my brain and I'm not looking forward to reliving that couple of weeks of my life. I'm also having trouble with a scene in the next chapter of A Quiet Normal Life, which is slowing me down on everything, which is why I've been posting Captain Hook stories lately. Now that I know when I'm going in the hospital for my longterm EGG to find out for sure whether this is epilepsy, I'm hoping this particular story will be easier to write and maybe even wrap up. I do really like this story, but it isn't an easy one to write. So glad I finally wrapped this chapter up! Another one that's proving hard to write is Whump There it Is, which is reminding me too much at the moment of that first night in the hospital with my dad when the doctors said he wasn't going to make it. He did - always was a tough sonofabitch - but that was a bad night.

* * *

 **Chapter Four: Dr. Segreto**

"God, will you please stop fidgeting?" Juliet asked, for the seventh time.

"No, O'Hara, and do you want to know why?" Lassiter said, with his long legs stretched out so far in front of him they totally blocked the path to the next set of comfortable waiting room chairs. "Because we are sitting in a psychiatrist's waiting room. Every one of us here is bat-shit crazy. A case of the fidgets is the least of our worries."

"Keep your voice down," Juliet said. "You're not crazy, and neither are these people. You just need a little help, that's all."

He crossed his arms tight over his chest and scowled furiously. "Yeah. Right."

"Carlton?" a nurse said, coming to the waiting room door. Juliet pushed against his shoulder and, with a most eloquent eye roll, he stood up. "The doctor's not quite ready for you yet, but we've got some information to sort out. Then you can come back out here 'til she comes to get you."

"Go on," Juliet said to him. "I'll be waiting right here for you."

Reluctantly, he followed the nurse into her office, where she immediately weighed him. "169," she said. "I'm jealous. How tall are you?"

"6'1"."

"All righty," she said, "have a seat." She sat down behind her desk at her computer and brought up a screen and started typing things in. "Okay, what exactly brings you here today? You've been having some kind of problems, right?"

He shrugged, just a little. "Apparently I've been…going catatonic. The neurologist suggested I speak to Dr. Segreto. He's still gonna do an EEG and an MRI on me, but he thinks it could be a stress disorder. He wants me to see a shrink and a…a therapist."

"You have problems with the idea of seeking assistance for your mental health?" the nurse asked. He shrugged again.

"With a pen stroke, these people can ruin my career."

"Your career being…?"

"I'm head detective for the SBPD."

"I see. Well, let's talk about these catatonic episodes. What exactly happens?"

He sighed. "You'd really have to talk to my partner. I don't remember them. She's caught me at it…five times now. I have absolutely no memory of anything going wrong."

"Have any of these happened while you were at work?"

"Three of them, but I wasn't driving. O'Hara's been driving me everywhere, even to and from home, since this started."

"Good to hear. Do you know how long you were catatonic during these times? Did she tell you?"

"I guess about…five minutes each time, is what she's figured. And then I'm…like…sleepy or something for the next twenty. I don't usually have any memory of any of that. If I do, it's pretty vague."

"We don't usually do this with adult patients, but I think I'm going to recommend to Dr. Segreto that she call your partner in with you when she calls you in. That is her out in the waiting room waiting for you, right?"

"Yeah."

"She won't be able to stay in the office for the whole session - patient confidentiality laws, you understand - but to start with, to help you explain to the doctor what's been going on, I think we're going to need her help."

Lassiter shrugged disinterestedly. "Whatever you think."

"Are you on any medication right now?" the nurse asked. He shook his head. "Anything over the counter, like Tylenol?"

"Not regularly. I take Aleve for muscle aches and Excedrin for headaches, but neither one at all frequently."

"Okay. Well, the doctor will be with you shortly. You can go back out to the waiting room now and get comfortable."

He stood up and headed quietly for the door. He went out to the waiting room to sit beside O'Hara again, and found his seat taken by a young man eagerly attempting to engage her in conversation. He drove the boy off with a scowl and a snarl and a flash of the badge, and Juliet gave him a grateful smile as he sat back down next to her.

A few minutes later a small woman, tending slightly to embonpoint, appeared at the doorway. "Carlton? Ms. O'Hara?" she asked, and they both stood up and followed her into her office.

She gestured them to a seat on the couch before her desk. Juliet sat back but Carlton sat on the very edge, nervously twiddling his thumbs. Segreto typed some things into her computer, ignoring them for the moment, and then sat back in her chair.

"So. We're having some problems. Ms. O'Hara, I have it to understand you know more about the situation than he does?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. He doesn't remember anything about these incidents after they've happened. There've been five now."

"Tell me about them. What was the first?"

O'Hara told her about the coffee cup incident, and then about the Booking incident. The other three incidents, one during an interrogation, which had so confused and terrified the suspect that he had confessed outright to the crime, one at home while holding a box of generic Lucky Charms and turning to put them away in the cabinet - Juliet had had to grab him and help him to the floor as he overbalanced and would have crashed down if she had not managed to catch him and at least slow his descent - and the last she had not seen but had heard: he had been in his bedroom, putting on his slacks in the morning and had crashed against his dresser, and she had run in to find him rigid on the floor, staring at the ceiling and moving his mouth like he was trying to say something.

"Hmm. And the neurologist thought these might be pseudoseizures?" Segreto asked. At their blank looks, she explained, "Seizures caused by stress or mental disorders, and not by epilepsy or other physical causes."

"Oh. Yes," Juliet said. "He's still scheduled for an EEG and an MRI just to make sure, but Dr. Rezai seemed to think it might well be a stress disorder."

"That mouth moving thing doesn't sound so much like a pseudoseizure, but then, they're all different," Segreto said. "Had he had that one when you saw Dr. Rezai?"

"No. He had that one this past Saturday morning."

"Well, just one incidence like that doesn't mean much. There's been no aphasia?"

"No."

"Any weakness or tingling?"

Juliet looked to Lassiter to answer that one. "No," he said.

"Well, then, Rezai is _probably_ right - with your occupation, a stress disorder is way more likely than anything physical, though I'd want someone to continue keeping a strong watch on you and these seizures and how you behave during them. Um, Ms. O'Hara - before I get into the questions that will clarify Detective Lassiter's mental state more specifically, I have to ask you to leave. Patient Confidentiality. You know how that works."

"Oh, of course." Juliet stood, squeezed Carlton's shoulder, and left, closing the office door behind her.

Segreto looked at Carlton squarely, tapping a pen on her desk and leaning back in her chair. "Now. Have had any unusual stress lately? At work, perhaps?"

Lassiter sighed. "There was the Jacobson case. O'Hara seems to think that was significant, but that was a long time ago now."

"The Jacobson case. Would that be the serial killer who killed all those poor children?"

"Yeah."

"That was a big case, and big for your career, I would imagine. You put that man away, didn't you?"

"Not alone."

"I watched the news on that case, I heard what they were saying. How Head Detective Carlton Lassiter was working _literally_ day and night to bring this sicko to justice. No one put in as much time an effort as you did, did they? No matter how dedicated they are, and I'm sure all of them were fully dedicated to catching that monster."

He said nothing in response. There was nothing he could think of to say.

"So. We can surely state for the record that _that_ was high stress, and no matter what you may think it wasn't that long ago in terms of mental health. Has there been anything else? Anything with friends and family, perhaps? Other job stresses?

He shook his head. "No."

"How have you been feeling emotionally? Happy? Sad? Anxious? Level? Panicky? Revved up? Strung out?"

"I get a little anxious now and then," he admitted, "and I think I'm always revved up. I've got to be. Can't afford to be firing on less than eight cylinders in my line of work."

"You seem kind of quiet right now."

"I'm usually not all that talkative."

"You seem a little depressed."

"There's two possibilities right now: either something's wrong with me mentally or something is physically wrong with my brain. Neither one is a happy thought."

"When you say you feel 'revved up,' how do you mean? Just energized and raring to go, or do you feel like you're cranked up on high and riding on the edge and every little thing is just out to push you off?"

"Uh…how do you mean that?" he asked.

"Do you get extra irritable?"

He scratched the back of his head. "More so than usual? I don't know. I…always kind of feel that way."

"How do you sleep? I know it's hard to get a full eight hours every night with the phone dragging you out of bed more often than not, but when you can sleep through the night, do you?"

"Not…usually."

"Have a hard time getting to sleep, or a hard time staying asleep? Or both?"

-…-…-…-

Juliet waited for him for quite awhile, and wondered what the doctor was asking him, what she was finding out. What she was doing about it. Finally he emerged, and walked at high speed toward the reception window, a scowl on his face. Did not bode well. She got up and went to stand with him. He was setting up another appointment. For next month.

"Well, what's the verdict?" she asked, as they walked away.

"She put me on forty milligrams of Prozac and twenty-five milligrams of Lamictl, plus twenty milligrams of this stuff called Geodon which is supposed to help me get to sleep at night without making it so I can't wake up when I need to. She says I exhibit symptoms of bipolar disorder, most currently mania, and she suspects I may be autistic - what they apparently used to call Asperger's Syndrome. Fortunately for me, she does _not_ think I'm schizophrenic, which I asked her about outright, because I read that seizures were a possible symptom and my mother has schizophrenia. I don't know whether schizophrenia is genetic or not. She also thinks I have an anxiety disorder and am Obsessive Compulsive to some degree, but I could have told her that one."

"Anything else?" Juliet ventured cautiously. He slammed the car door behind himself.

"Yeah. She said that because I've had five seizures in a relatively short period of time and they've been significant, it's best if I go on medical leave. She's talking to Dr. Rezai about it, and together they are taking me off work until my next appointment with the neurologist."

"Oh. Oh, I'm…I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"Well, maybe this is just what you need. A little rest. You can relax, do some reading, go to the park near your condo and just enjoy the fresh air…"

"And go silently out of my mind for the next two months, O'Hara. It is _two months_ to my next appointment with the neurologist."

"Yeah. Sorry." She put the car in gear. "Well, I'll be with you as much as I can."

"Yeah. Thanks, O'Hara."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

* * *

 **Chapter Five: The EEG**

The EEG in and of itself was no big deal. Annoying, yes, but no big deal. Flashing lights, noises. Absolutely nothing happened, reinforcing the neurologist's initial opinion that it wasn't epilepsy or another physical cause. What the actual reading was he'd have to wait for, and he expected it to be the usual long wait of several days at least. So he was quite surprised to receive a call later that night.

"Lassiter."

"Yes, Mr. Lassiter? I'm calling about the results of your EEG. We noticed some slowing on the right side of your brain, which indicates that there may be a structural abnormality. The MRI should define what, exactly, the problem could be."

…

…

"Oh. I see."

"Do you have any questions?"

Questions? His mind was frozen. Perhaps if the perky lab assistant on the other end of the line gave him a few minutes, maybe half an hour, he'd be able to think of some questions, but she wouldn't give him that kind of time. "No, not right now," he said. "If I come up with any I'll ask 'em at the MRI."

"Well, you can always call us up here at the office as well."

"Oh. Okay."

"All right. Have a good evening."

"Yeah, you too."

He hung up the phone and held it to his chest, staring at the blank TV screen in front of him, his mind as blank as the screen for some moments longer. Structural abnormality? What the hell did that mean?

More blankness. Structural abnormality. Something physically wrong with his brain, some part out of whack. Something like that person he'd heard about on some TV program or other awhile back, who'd gone in for a brain scan and found out their skull was mostly just filled with cranial fluid and hardly any brain at all. It probably wasn't that bad. Probably.

Probably.

No, it was probably something a lot milder. Just a swelling. Or a shrinking. One area that was too big, or a little too small, or… or something. Just a little something that was making some little section of his brain fire more slowly than it should.

That was… impairing… cognitive… function.

Dear God. Impaired cognitive function. Even if it was mild, what would that do to him, to his career? If it did no more than make it a little harder to tie his shoes it was opening him up to a whole new realm of snide commentary from Spencer. What if it was worse? What if it really did impede his ability to do his job effectively? Maybe it did. Maybe that was why it was so easy for Spencer to get the better of him.

Structural abnormality. What else could that mean? An aneurysm? Maybe the leftover remnants of a stroke? A burned-out portion of gray matter, shriveled up and useless now. Not enough to notice anything much in the way of lasting effects, perhaps, but… have one, have another? Maybe many? Until one day you have one big enough to do some real damage, maybe even kill you? He thought about it. He'd rather be killed outright than left paralyzed, dependent on others for the simplest things, like getting in and out of bed. He had four good, strong limbs and he appreciated that fact: he thanked God every day for them, and prayed that they never be taken away from him. He could learn to live with paraplegia if he had to, but not quadriplegia, and hemiplegia, too, was hard to cope with. His father hadn't been able to work his way through it, tough and indomitable a man as he'd been. Would Carlton be any tougher?

And then there was one other thing that came to the layman's mind as a possible "structural abnormality," wasn't there? That one thing the mind preferred to shy away from thinking about. Carlton thought about it, turning his attention to it brutally, facing it as the possible truth and damn the consequences. A tumor.

Well, there were a couple of possibilities with a brain tumor, weren't there? One, that it was small enough and fresh enough and in the right spot that they could get it out and with a bit of treatment and chemo and what-have-you all would be sunshine and lollipops. That was possibility number one.

Possibility number two. It was big. It was spread. It was in a bad spot. Someway, somehow, there was no way to do anything much about it. Treatments, perhaps, more likely just to prolong life rather than to save it. People you barely spoke to crowding around your bedside saying how sorry they felt for you instead of leaving you alone like you wanted. Chances were one in a billion that this was what was happening to him, but…expect the best, prepare for the worst, right? So what would he do about it if this is what was happening?

First off, if there was absolutely no hope, and whatever treatments they proposed were just about extending the time before it killed him rather than making it so something else could kill him much further down the line, then he would refuse. He'd rather go out quick and easy, rather than slow and painful. It seemed more dignified, too. His family would probably argue with him, but whose life was it? It was his choice to make.

He would ask to be cremated. Intellectually it made no difference, buried or burned, who really cared once they were dead? But he preferred the concise simplicity of the tiny box of ashes versus the bulky casket requiring the concrete liner. He didn't care what they did with the ashes - bury them in the family plot, spread them out to sea, whatever they wanted to do.

If he were then allowed to choose where his spirit would haunt, he would choose the east ridge of the Grand Canyon, so he would forevermore be able to watch the sunrise lighting up the western ridge at dawn, the single most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his entire life. With mist hanging almost unseen in the air in front of the cliffs and the colors of the rocks muted by it, everything transformed into pastels by the quality of the light rising higher and higher into the sky and reaching deeper and deeper into the abyss. The canyon rocks reflecting the bands of orange and red and gold and purple from the sunrise almost like a mirror. Keep Heaven. He'd take that.

He really felt very calm, thinking about all of this. Which is why he was surprised to feel a single tear track its way down his cheek. He pondered it for a moment. Death didn't scare him. He could say that with some certainty now, as there was a distinct possibility that, in one form or another, he was staring it in the face. He could handle death. He didn't _want_ to die, but if it was coming, bring it on. He wasn't scared, not of that possibility. The possibility of cognitive impairment bothered him far, far more. If he died, maybe he'd see Dad again. They could watch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon together.

-…-…-…-

Oh, the MRI sucked. Majorly. Not the confinement in the damn tube, though that sucked even though he wasn't claustrophobic, but the lack of ability to move a fucking muscle without somebody snarking at you to hold still. At least there was music: Sirius XFM radio, his choice of channels. He picked the 50s station. He didn't get to hear enough fifties music these days. It was a slow hell, but it was over now, all over but the waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Two weeks of waiting. Finally, he got a letter from the hospital in the mail, kindly informing him that the results of his MRI showed everything was normal in his brain! The only problems detected were a small cyst in his sinuses and a case of sinusitis. All those weeks of wondering what of so many things could be wrong with his brain… and there was _nothing?_

He called up the neurologist's office.

"If there was slowing in my brain, how come the MRI shows nothing wrong?" he asked, once he had someone.

"Oh, there could be any number of reasons," he was cheerily informed. A list of possibilities was presented he pounced upon one of them.

" _Mini-stroke?"_

"It's a possibility, but the MRI more than likely would have shown something. The biggest possibility would be the medication you're on, just slowing things down for the moment."

"Oh great. I wasn't _on_ any medication 'til all this started."

"Well, do keep taking it. A little slowing in one small corner of your brain is a small thing compared to what that medicine is protecting you against, and it's not going to be an all-the-time slowing."

"Yeah. Okay."

"All right. Remember to come in for your follow-up appointment and do continue to keep track of any and all seizures you have between now and then."

"Will do."


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Few, but possible at any point through entire series

* * *

 **Chapter Six: The Follow-Up**

"Okay. Explain to me your current symptoms."

"There was aphasia after one of the more recent seizures. I was trying to explain something to my partner and I couldn't get the right words out. Whatever I was trying to say, I said the word 'shoulder' instead. It might have happened at another point as well - _I_ think I remember that - but O'Hara doesn't, so I can't confirm it. I've been noticing small moments of mixed-up words more and more often since then. Not just in speech, but in writing, too. Just a couple of days ago I was at my computer typing something in. I tried to type the word 'and' - a. n. d. - and I typed the word 'zinc' - z. i. n. c. - instead. I am eighty percent certain it wasn't autocorrect. I won't lie to you, doc - I'm scared shitless, good results on the MRI or not."

"The most recent seizure was kind of different, as well," O'Hara supplied. "He was sitting next to me on the couch watching the news and suddenly his head turned toward me, and his eyes slid to the side, and his mouth started moving funny, and he wouldn't answer me when I talked to him, so I knew he was out of it. He started to come around and turned back to watch the news again but still wouldn't answer me more than mumbles for a long time until he just perked up bright and happy and picked up a conversation where we'd left off like nothing had happened whatsoever. He looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him if he was all right."

"How many seizures have there been since the last time I've seen you?" Dr. Rezai asked.

"Nine that I've witnessed," O'Hara said. "Two more that other cops saw when I was on duty and they were looking after him for me. But… you know how it is. Cops are always on duty. I haven't always been able to get someone to watch him when I'm gone."

Carlton huffed and rolled his eyes.

"One of the ones that I witnessed was while he was… using the facilities," she said, red-faced. "I found him leaned up against the wall just staring. I managed to get him to…" She coughed lightly. "…tuck himself away and walk with me across the hall to his room."

"You had to tell him about that one," Carlton muttered.

"Dr. Segreto has him up to fifty milligrams of Lamictl - bringing him up slowly because of the risk of that deadly skin rash you can get from it - but it nothing seems to be helping him yet. Segreto still thinks it could be pseudoseizures from his bipolar disorder, but she wonders about these funny movements."

"So too do I," Dr. Rezai said. "I have to say that along with the aphasia, they do make it sound more like a cause like epilepsy. I think what I would like to have you do is have a stay in the hospital. Would you be amenable to that, Detective Lassiter? A week-long stay?"

"For what purpose?" he said suspiciously.

"A long-term EEG. We had the short-term EEG and that told us nothing specific. A long-term EEG will give us a much clearer picture."

"Wait - we didn't even get the _results_ of the EEG," Juliet said. "Or the MRI. Won't you at least tell us what you found out before you try to find out more?"

Dr. Rezai looked at them both in surprise. "The results of the EEG came back that same day, and the results of the MRI were sent out to you in twelve days' time. You did not receive them?"

Juliet looked at Carlton, shaking her head, and then her face clouded over at his absolute lack of expression. "Carlton. You knew what the results were and you didn't _tell_ me?"

"There was nothing to tell. The MRI came back all clear."

She socked him hard on the arm. "I can't believe you! I've been worried for _two months!"_

"Sorry," he said, and meant it. "I just… didn't think it mattered."

"Didn't think it mattered? How could you… how could you be so… so…"

She was crying now.

"O'Hara, I'm really sorry. It's just… the MRI was clear. There was nothing to worry about."

"And the EEG was not… quite… clear," Dr. Rezai said. "Could that be why you were reluctant to speak?"

"The lab tech said it was all up to the MRI," Lassiter said quietly.

"What did the EEG say?" Juliet said.

"Nothing much."

" _Carlton."_

"Slowing of the brain on the right side. It was probably just my medication, slowing things down momentarily."

"What else could it have been?" Juliet asked. "Carlton. What else?"

He refused to open his mouth. Dr. Rezai supplied the answer. "The MRI might have shown something physically wrong on that side of the brain, a structural abnormality of some form. An enlarged ventricle, an aneurysm, or perhaps a tumor."

She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh. Oh God."

"Might have, O'Hara," Lassiter said. "Didn't."

"And you kept this to yourself?"

"Couldn't say anything. Not even to you. Sorry, but I just couldn't."

She hugged him. "Oh God, Carlton."

"Ahm… about the long-term EEG… would you be willing to undergo such a thing?" Dr. Rezai ventured.

"I suppose. Set it up."

"All right, then. We will have answers. We will have this done as soon as possible, but like the MRI, we will have to wait for the approval of the almighty insurance company. A few instructions: the receptionist will give you the full list. First off: no caffeine the night before you come in, and secondly, don't take your lamictl that night. You can take your Prozac and your Geodon as usual but we're taking you off the anti-seizure medication for the duration of that week because we are going to do our damnedest to invoke a seizure so we can see exactly what goes on in your head when one happens. If one happens quick enough, you may not even have to stay the full week, which would be wonderful for you, because during that week we're going to keep you caffeine deprived and sleep deprived, all in the hopes of instigating a seizure. I've heard it from nurses and doctors in the critical care ward already that you are a 'difficult' patient even without those factors." The doctor grinned. "You are somewhat infamous here in this hospital, you know. Lots of water cooler tales about you. They sound like war stories."

Lassiter affected a scowl, but Juliet could see he was slightly puffed up, like he was proud of this fact. He would be, the bastard, she thought with a grin on her face.

"Well, go to the desk and make an appointment for another follow-up and I'll get them started calling the insurance company for the go-ahead for the hospital stay and we'll get back to you on that. We will have answers!" Rezai said with determination, offering a final handshake to each of them.

Back in Juliet's Bug, she pulled out of the crowded hospital lot and said, "Lunch?"

"Don't you have to get back to work?"

"I took the day for this."

"Well, whatever you want."

"How about…hmm…what sounds good? You know what? I'm in the mood for pure American. How 'bout a nice, big sloppy joe and some fries and a pickle on the side, eh?"

"Sounds good to me. Heinz ketchup."

"Of course Heinz. It's America's favorite ketchup. The only one it takes three burly men to pound out of the bottle."

She drove in silence for awhile. Then, "I can't believe I didn't see… anything. You laughed at my jokes, you smiled at me, you talked about the news, we argued about politics, we made fun of Donald Trump together… never once did I realize there was _anything_ on your mind."

"There wasn't," he said. "I got the call, I froze up, I thought about it, I made plans. Altogether it took about an hour, an hour and a half maybe. And then I put it aside. I knew what I had to do. No use dwelling on it."

"What kind of plans?" she asked quietly.

"What I needed to do if it was something I couldn't do anything about."

"God, Carlton," she said, tearing up again.

He shrugged. "That was never a big deal. Heck, I always kind of knew that wouldn't bother me. I'm a cop: I could die any day. Death doesn't scare me. I would prefer to go out with some degree of dignity."

"What _did_ bother you, then? Something did, otherwise you would have told me. Maybe not about the possibility of a tumor, but you would have told me something was wrong, wouldn't you? If you weren't worried?"

"Well, for one thing, O'Hara, I didn't want _you_ to worry," he said softly. "For another… _I_ was worried about the possibility of _brain function impairment_. Worried that it might be coming on down the road, worried that it might already be here."

"Oh, Carlton."

"That's still got me worried. I'm trying to stay hopeful, but you know me. I'm not always a pessimist, but… usually."

"What if it's epilepsy? I don't know much about it."

"Neither do I."

"You haven't researched it?"

"Haven't wanted to find out. I think it's no big deal these days, most of the time. Don't want to find out I'm wrong."

"I'm sure you're not."

"Yeah. Probably not. Most things aren't nearly as bad these days as they used to be. They've even got kind of a handle now on AIDS, don't they?"

"Yeah, I, um… I think I heard that. Though the last I heard of it the treatments were ungodly expensive."

"Yeah. There's always that problem, eh? That was something I thought about, too. That maybe it would be something they _could_ do something about, but I wouldn't be able to afford it and my insurance wouldn't cover it."

"The SBPD would _never_ let that happen, Carlton. They wouldn't," Juliet said fiercely. "They'd take up a fund."

"Yeah," he said, but with clear doubt in his tone. She chanced a glance in his direction and poked him in the chest.

" _Yeah,_ mister," she said. "You doubt, and I hope you never find out how wrong you are, but you're wrong. Now, let's go get those sloppy joes before someone else beats us to 'em."

* * *

 **A/N:** My long-term EEG hospital stay is the 23 - 27. Fingers crossed, that is when I find out how this story ends.

I hope I haven't been whiny about this little episode. I know I've exhibited my frustrations - it would be impossible for me not to - but whiny? Not my thing, dudes and dudettes. If I have been, my sincerest apologies. It wasn't intentional and I don't know how it happened: I've mostly thought I've been coping with this fairly well. The ideal for me is to handle things outwardly at least like the guy in George Strait's song "I Can Still Make Cheyenne." It ain't easy. I've been talking about it with all of you known and unknown because I don't have anybody else to talk _to_ and some things kind of beg to be talked about even if no one's talking back. I have family but… well, they know me as the one that doesn't talk, and they expect that of me now, so if I suddenly started talking they'd shit themselves. I know I whine about the sister thing, but I'm only so strong.

Guess who's here in town today? Donald Trump! I'd like to meet him, just to ask him a couple of questions, but I'd never get near him, not to mention he'd never listen to me.

Yesterday morning, really really early, I was watching NFL Total Access and they had three commentators standing there talking and one of them said, "What was that?" and another one said, "Oh, I just farted." I want THAT guy for President. Accountability!


End file.
